


Bedlam Boys

by Shayvaalski



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Gender Roles, Parent-Child Relationship, Parentlock, seb moran: minder of highly sensitive people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7034161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>And then he comes home.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Comes home solemn and frowning and not by hisownself, which Sebastian would’ve vastly fecking prefered so he could’ve punched Moriarty right solid in the gut, but with a wild-looking little girl who clings to him like she’s never planning to let go.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>1920s Moran Family AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedlam Boys

**Author's Note:**

> I did some (minimal) research for this, but mostly it's pure fun. Originally posted on tumblr. I do want to note that this mentions institutionalization, if that's going to be a problem for anyone.

When M has been gone a month, the muttering starts; when Tiger Moran grits his teeth and bloodies his knuckles it stops. Business, he says to anyone who asks, business in the Old Country and you can keep your great fecking nose out of it.

He has no idea where Jimmy is. Woke up one nippy spring morning and the other bed hadn’t been slept in, and Jim’s pillow on Seb’s bed didn’t even have a dent in it, so where the bleedin’ hell was he, the cunt. No note except an M drawn in spilled sugar (childhood without it pings Sebastian in the back of the brain; but they can pretty well afford to waste sugar, running hot and high like they are) so he knows it’s not permanent or anything to worry about but fuck the boss sideways he might have given Seb some warning.

But he manages. Jimmy’s the cleverness but it’s the Moran mob when it comes right down to brass tacks, so they listen, and if they don’t listen to words, well, the Tiger’s Savage will sort them out. Ten shots quick, fecking right. M is going to be so bloody pissed when he gets back is the word. Everyone knows how fond he is of standing witness at a death like some kinda priest. Sebastian spends nights scrubbing blood out of his favorite shirts and cursing. One week, then two, then three, four, then fucking five and he is starting to get worried. Well. Not worried. Jimmy takes care of himself, always has, even if he’s a skinny little bastard with his bright waistcoats and top hat, untouched when he should be the target of every pincher on the street, but Seb’s got used to having him around.

Likes having him around, even, and isn’t that just as fucking bad? He scrubs the shirt against the wringer hard enough that there’s a thin patch and Sebastian is as angry as the day he went down the drain after the she-tiger, drunk on cheap smuggled whiskey and rage.

They can afford the good stuff now, smooth as polished wood, sliding down his throat in a slow sweet burn, and Moran swallows a glass of it every night Jimmy doesn’t come bursting in, all noise and heat and as fecking mad as Cú Chulainn with the _ríastrad_ on him. He’d even welcome the little pervert’s hand sliding down the back of his trousers as tries to talk black-market prices with their supplier, Jaysus fuck Jimmy can’t it wait twenty fucking minutes, and the bedroom’s too quiet at night without his noisy little arse.

And then he comes home.

Comes home solemn and frowning and not by hisownself, which Sebastian would’ve _vastly_ fecking preferred so he could’ve punched Moriarty right solid in the gut, but with a wild-looking little girl who clings to him like she’s never planning to let go.

A girl with big dark eyes that are all pupil, and skin that’s pale under the dirt, and matted hair that if twere clean would be the self-same color as Jim’s, feck, and Seb sits back on his heels. Scowls murderous up at M.

“You took your bloody time about it, then.”

Moriarty shifts the girl against his hip, and he’d thought _four_ but he revises upwards suddenly, way up, because she’s tiny as a just-hatched bird but there’s too much smart in the back of her eyes for comfort, just like Jimmy with his sideways smile.

“Had to, Tiger, you think walking out of Bedlam’s easy as sinning?”

“You was never in Bethlem Hospital.”

“Wasn’t I?” The girl’s head twists on her neck to follow between them, her hands clenched into his morning coat. “Say hello to your pa, Siobhan.”

“Oh no you fecking _don’t_ ,” starts Sebastian, surging to his feet, big calloused fingers clenched into fists, and doesn’t he have some cheek. “I’ll take a lotta bullshit, y’ great arse, but this is—"

Jimmy’s free hand is against his chest, light and casual and horrifying because his eyes are gleaming the color of blood. Sebastian eases back because he’s not a damn fucking fool and anyway there’s a wee lass in between them and Seb doesn’t hurt children. Not unless he’s told, anyway. She hasn’t said a word yet. 

“Scrub her off, Tiger,” says Jim, then yawns, huge and showy (not that he’s even bloody tired, thinks Seb, furious, because he’s never tired, he’s just playing at it) and continues,” I’m going to go freshen up.”

He sashays out of the room, hips swinging like a Mercer Street whore’s; Siobhan edges away as if to go after him, eyes not leaving the doorway to the bedroom until Sebastian catches her arm. She spins on him, hissing like a feral fecking cat. He holds her at arms-length. Lise isn’t enough younger that Seb ever had to bathe her, but he remembers it being a whole fecking chore for Mam, heating water in a great ruddy kettle, once a week at most.

At least Jimmy has the kind of money and connections to land them with a flat where there’s running water. No tenement walk-ups, hauling water from the street—Siobhan wriggles harder but she’s tiny.

“Be calm, lass,” says Seb to no effect; finally he has to pick her up and carry her into the washroom. She gets even more violent when he turns on the water, white showing around the edges of her dark, dark eyes.

He wonders, as she huddles in the corner (she can’t even reach the lock, or maybe just can’t parse it, half-wild with fear), if Jimmy had told the truth about Bedlam. What would a child this small have to do, to end up in that fecking cesspit of loonies?

“Right my lass,” Seb murmurs when the tub’s half-full—she’ll be dwarfed by it, when he and Jimmy have both managed to fit—and crouches down to her level. “Ain’t no use arguing with the boss, _a thuiscint_? He says bath, you get scrubbed. Come on, _cailín_ , won’t do you no harm.”

He keeps his voice low and calm, like soothing his big sister’s nervous, prone to fecking sinking its teeth into him dog; Siobhan watches him warily. Doesn’t budge. It occurs to Sebastian to wonder briefly if she’s a mute or simple but neither of those sound like Jimmy’s style.

In the end he makes a quick darting grab that she does not bloody expect (but then how would she guess the only way to grab a monkey for dinner was that same blind rush?) and gets Siobhan by the scruff of the neck. She doesn’t yell like a normal fucking bairn, just snarls and scrapes long nails down his arm. By the time he gets her undressed Seb is bleeding in three places and her ribs are heaving.

He can tell because, Jesus Mary and Joseph, they show each and all through her skin, which is marked with scars and fading bruises. Jimmy has those kinds of scars, thinks Tiger Moran as he holds her with one hand and scrubs with the other. Like he’d been whipped. Not a kind world, for his breed. Not a surprise his blood has ‘em too.

(Sebastian does not for a moment doubt his own certainty that Moriarty and the dark wee girl are the same beast in two skins.)

By the time Siobhan is free of dirt Moran is soaked, and she’s no longer struggling, just stiff and trembly in every limb. He talks to her like he’d talk to a spooky ox, back home on the farm in Dalkey, though he’s not got the least fecking thought she hears him.

Seb tries with her hair, he really does, but the way Siobhan gasps when he sluices water over her head scares the shite out of him, ragged and sobbing as it is, and Sebastian can hear her thrice-damned heart shake her thin chest, it’s beating so fast and so hard. Her hands scrabble at his wrists and cling, untrimmed nails digging into the cuts the little she-devil had already left. Seb’s seen terror often enough in his line of work, and Siobhan is awash with it.

So he fetches the shears from the kitchen, wraps the lass in a towel, and cuts off her hair over the sink. Seb means just to cut off the matted braids but something makes him keep going until she’s the fecking image of what Jimmy must have been as a boy. He’ll clean it up later, neaten the ragged ends; but Sebastian has his doubts she’ll hold together much longer if he doesn’t set her loose. The instant he lets Siobhan go she clutches the towel around herself and backs up; Seb opens the door for her. He expect her to flee instantly, scramble towards the front room where he can see Jimmy sprawled out on the sofa, but instead Siobhan touches her short hair with hesitant fingers, looks up at Seb from beneath her lashes.

He thinks she smiles.

By the time Sebastian has changed his shirt (and his trousers, and his fecking skivvies), Siobhan is in an ankle-length sleepshirt he doesn’t recognize, curled up against Jimmy’s hip. His hand is gently stroking her short rough hair, and Seb braces for a reprimand; instead Moriarty looks at him consideringly.

“She might be safer as a lad,” Sebastian says without thinking about it, without really understanding how he knows. Jim hums, just barely off-key, and puts his head to one side. His hand moves smoothly over Siobhan’s skull and the back of her neck with something Seb can’t help but read as affection. Jimmy, who has never show Sebastian anything like love in five fecking years.

“She might, at that,” he says. “I covered our tracks quite well, Sebastian, but no need to be overly careless; and times aren’t so changed that a woman will have it easy, even with me as her mum.”

Seb shoots him a startled look; Jimmy raises an eyebrow and says, “It won’t do having her slip, Tiger. A child’s meant to have a mum and da, and even if the gang knows she’ll have to go to school.”

“Huh.” Sebastian knows him well enough not to object, and Moriarty yawns a cat’s yawn and goes on. “So: she’ll be a lad. Eh, Siobhan?”

Siobhan looks up at him, eyes unreadable. Jim’s hand settles softly against that thin bloody back (they’ll have to make sure she eats, which if she’s anything like Jimmy is going to be a struggle) and rests there.

“Yes, mum,” Siobhan says. Her voice is heavily accented—not Moriarty’s Dublin or his own country-lad brogue but pure fecking Northern Irish—and on the low side for a child, though still lilting. Maybe she’s just still in shock, from being pulled out of fucking Bedlam and immigrated across the ocean. Her eyes are almost closed; she must be exhausted, worn almost to pieces.

Sebastian has always wanted children.

He drops down next to Jimmy on the couch, half-expecting Siobhan to draw away from him, not entirely willing to blame her if she did, after he’d spent so much bloody time scrubbing her raw. She doesn’t move. Sebastian glances at Moriarty, now smoothing his hand down her spine as if gentling her to sleep. Her small fingers are curled into the bottom of his shirt, and Siobhan doesn’t take her eyes away from his face.

“What’ll we call you then, pet?” It’s addressed partly to the wee lass and partly to Moran himself, who shrugs. Jimmy’s voice is nearly a croon; she seems to find it soothing because her eyes sag a little further shut. The three of them are quiet a little while as Jim thinks it over, eyes wide-pupilled and distant. Sebastian waits him out—this at least is familiar as the long scar that did such a bloody job on his nose and cheek. Eventually Jimmy hums a long off-key note. Blinks down at the girl almost asleep against him.

“Padraig,” he says, and it’s nearly three syllables; _pad rye-ig_. Sebastian thinks about making an objection, same way as he’d nearly objected to the bizarre fecking way Jim had pronounced Siobhan, and then thinks better. “We’ll call him Padraig.”

“Fair enough, boss.” He waits another second or two, and then Sebastian very cautiously reaches out and strokes his own fingers over her rough-cut hair. Even almost asleep Siobhan presses up infinitesimally into the touch, like a cat who might either purr or take a bleeding chunk out of your hand.

“Padraig Moran,” says Moriarty, casual, and Tiger stops dead, dead in his fecking tracks; but Jimmy’s serious as a gun to the head. Even Siobhan—Padraig—seems to catch it, looking up with a sharp little motion as Jim says, “That suit you, pet?”

The lass (the lad, maybe, because when Jimmy does a thing he doesn’t do it half-fucking-way) looks at Moriarty first and then, longer, at Moran, and may sweet Christ damn him straight to hell if Seb isn’t half in love with the wee thing already. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and says, gently, like the answer doesn’t matter, “Well, sweetheart?”

“Suits, mum.” Her voice is blurred with sleep and the old country so that it’s hard to hear when she adds, “And da.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows as if to say I told you so, and Sebastian just continues smoothing his hand over her neck and back as she curls (he curls, thinks Seb; might as well get used to it) closer against his mum’s hip. He’s a Moriarty, every inch, even half-limp with exhaustion and fear—

—but he is a Moran too, son or daughter, blood or not.

And Sebastian will keep him safe.


End file.
